Changing the Storyline

[SonicKade2048]

After I read Evil Yoshi Toes' thread on "Effective story delivery in a Mario game", it made me think: what would happen if we could manually improve the story-driven plot in Mario games? What would be affected or changed in this modern world we're in? For example, how would we take Super Mario World and make it more interactive? All I ever really saw story-wise from that game was minor cutscenes and having battles with The Koopalings. But what would you do? Would you fix what any Mario game didn't get right?

For me, disregarding technical limitations for a brief moment, I'd probably add character interaction within the game itself; maybe have a few more Yoshis scattered around the island to talk to Mario or Luigi. They would give hints on what the player should do and/or where they should go. I would also copy what Kirby Super Star and Super Star Ultra did and have mini-bosses on the world map, though taking it from a Mario aspect, it'd be more like SMB3 (I saw them more as "fight small enemies and get an item" than actual bosses, sadly). Lastly, aside from giving Luigi his slippery physics and other things to make him more "Luigi-esque", I would have scenarios only Mario or Luigi could enter, or even have one brother be taken by a Koopaling or such and have the other brother save him. Let's say that Mario gets kidnapped by Big Boo a ways through the journey, and Luigi must go rescue him in a previously-completed Ghost House level. Luigi must backtrack on the world map and go to the level, entering it to fight Big Boo again and save Mario.



What are your opinions on this idea of mine? How would you change the games to improve on their story, or gameplay in general?

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[VinnyVideo]

I feel like the Mario RPGs, especially Paper Mario and Paper Mario: TTYD, do a good job of taking Mario worlds and making them feel interactive. It tends to be easier to have more dialogue and character development in an RPG than in a 2-D platformer.

Course clear! You got a card.

[Evil Yoshi Toes]

I just made a similar post in that thread you linked, but to me the best storytelling in a fast paced 2D Mario platformer is one that's simple and happens on the fly, much like Mario World's already is. It takes Mario and Peach (and sometimes Luigi) to a dinosaur land, and that's really all you get from the original game's opening aside from the typical Peach-gone-missing shebang. All further storytelling happens in the form of stage elements, like Yoshi and the new dino enemies.

The post-boss cutscenes tell us about the individual Koopaling, and seeing Mario blow up their castles is badass! The GBA version adds a new opening cutscene where we see Peach interact with Mario before she's taken, which is nice. Beyond that, though, I don't think more storyline is necessary. Not that I'd complain if there was more, I just don't think it'd make the game a lot better than it already is.

The same cannot be said for an RPG. Sticker Star suffered immensely from its lack of story and unique NPCs. Even if the gameplay mechanics were as good as TTYD and PM1, it would feel stale because of its lack of world building and story that helped make the first three Paper Mario games and SMRPG fun to play through. There's so much I would change about the storyline of Sticker Star that it would be its own game entirely! The idea of the crown girl and the sticker stars is similar to the first PM game and could work, but beyond that... nothing really happens. It's just a point A to point B journey with nothing interesting story-wise in between. Had they given us those Peach segments between each boss that may have helped, but both Peach and Bowser are so stale in that game that I wouldn't have cared to see them anyway. The story of that game would really have to be reworked from the ground up to be interesting.